Facing Eternity
by My Broken Quill
Summary: He only looks like he’s in his late forties now.


**Facing Eternity**

She holds her out to him like an offering, her tired arms still shaking a little from having just given birth. Logan turned to look back at the door, her boyfriend was still filling in the forms, and carefully takes the baby with experienced hands. Then inhales sharply when he sees the child.

She has dark brown hair - not quite the right shade, a little too dark really, but close enough for him, and her eyes are brown too, the colour of moist soil. The baby looks up at him with guileless brown eyes and opens her pink wrinkly mouth to yawn.

"I decided to call her Marie," the girl on the bed says, pushing tangled, sweaty hair out of her eyes to smile at him.

Despair bubbles up inside him. "Thanks kid," he says gruffly, voice low so as not to startle the baby - Marie. It meant a lot to him, both the name and the baby, their children had looked so much like her, especially little Georgie, a spitting image of her mama right down to the much hated gap in her teeth. Jessie's two had had her lips and big doleful eyes, though theirs had been blue, and Georgie's boy had gotten her dark hair, Mississippi glow and the same spark in his eyes when he got angry, but after that … she was diluted down even more.

Over the years, no matter how desperately Logan had looked, he hadn't been able to find any of her in what remained of their family. Her Southern flair, her throaty twang, the way she blinked rapidly when she was lying … it was all lost. Lost so long ago.

This girl, blonde, steely blue eyed, tall, skinny even when she had been pregnant, with her gangster wannabe, rough New York accent, looks nothing like her, acts nothing like her too. But she's all Logan has, and even if it has been diluted, Marie's blood still runs in her.

"Does she look like her?" the girl asks. Pregnancy seems to have softened her a little, Logan remembers a time when every second word had been a swear word and had so much slang in it that it had sounded foreign.

He looks down at the bundle in his arms, wills the teasing smile, the melancholy eyes and the snorting giggle into her. "Too early to tell," he replies. He's stopped hoping some years back.

"Will you look after her?" Her voice trembles at the end. Logan knows why, people never really have to face their own mortality until they see death, Logan is death walking, talking and kicking ass. He tends to remind them that while they age he stays the same. That when they're gone he'll still be there. That when she's buried six feet deep he'll be laying flowers on her grave.

He only looks like he's in his late forties now.

"You know I will Emma." Not too long ago - well, not to him anyway - her father had put her in his hands and asked him the same thing. And before that his mother too.

So, because he always keeps his promises, and because he has nothing else, he knows he'll watch over this little girl for the rest of her life. He'll pick her up when she falls, tell her stories about her great-great-great-great-god what was it now? Grandmother, and watch her grow older and older until she dies. He'll bury her then and if she has kids he'll start over with them.

Maybe they'll look like Marie.

AN: Angst … ooo, I wuv writing angst. It makes my jelly babies hum … That sounds vaguely dirty. Anyway, do you like the names of Logan's children, Georgie and Jessie, Jessie is male by the way and Georgie is short for Georgina. Just um background info because I'm a little obsessive.

I know it's a little short, and there isn't as much detail as one would wish - which was on purpose as I wanted to create a blur of time effect - so I want to give you guys a pressie as an apology. Yep, a sneak peak at my upcoming Rogan story. Currently I've written … uh … maybe more than five chapters but I prefer to write the whole story out first before I post it. This one is proving to be quite difficult, already it's gone through one major plot change and three rough drafts. Hence the reason for me wanting to write it all up before I put it up here.

Anyway, here it is. Enjoy.

**The Prodigal Son**

"I'm on the highway to hell!" Brian crooned as she pulled up outside the gates and stared at what had once, if only very briefly, been her home. It hadn't changed much, and if it had, then Rogue couldn't seem to spot it.

She smiled wryly and pressed the stop button, the coward in her was tempted to take Brian's words as a sign and tear out of here as fast as this bucket of shit could go - so far, it was having a hard time reaching sixty.

"Yes?" a bodiless voice interrupted, startling her badly enough to accidentally put her foot on the accelerator. The car made a half hearted lurch forwards, then stalled. Wouldn't that have been a nice entrance, if she had crashed into the gate? Rogue looked around, trying to spot where the voice had come from; when she had been living here, the gates had just opened automatically. Well there we go, one change spotted. "Yes?" repeated the voice impatiently. Ah hah, it had come from a fancy looking doorbell near the gate.

"Hi," she answered back perkily to cover her nerves.

"Do you have an appointment?"

"Well uh … no." Not a good start, but it would have been an even worse one if she had lied. "But I _really _need to see the Professor …" she let it trail off pathetically and tried to look beseeching, then remembered that he could only hear her - maybe this hadn't been a good idea … Maybe the guy on the other side would do her a favour and turn her away, she hadn't done that badly by herself.

"Your name?"

She should leave.

"Miss? Your name?" he repeated.

She looked backwards to reverse, palmed the gear stick and set it to 'R.' The guy was still calling her - on the backseat of her car lay her duffle. She saw it then rested her forehead on the steering wheel.

Who was she kidding, her life sucked.

"Marie. It's Marie," she finally answered. No one here knew her by that name, not even her ex-boyfriend, but even though she knew they wouldn't, a little part of her was still frightened that they would turn her away if they knew who was really waiting out here. Which was stupid, they were wonderful people, real life good Samaritans to a fault, but still … she didn't want to take the chance.

The line went static for a couple of seconds and then the guy came back on. "The Professor will see you. Please park your car at the front of the mansion and wait at the entrance where an escort will come to meet you." The line went dead.

"I'm on the highway to hell!" screamed Brian once again as the gates sprung open and Rogue slowly chugged inside. She snarled and tried to ignore him then banged on the tape player until the cassette popped out.

"Shut up."

**Please remember though that this is still only a draft and that further changes could be made to it. **

Oh, I'm not really too happy with the title … so keep that in mind too, if anybody has any suggestions for a better title then please email me.


End file.
